Germany will provide a Patriot missile battery and armored personnel carriers to Ukraine, the administration announced on Thursday.
The announcement was made in a joint German-US statement, following a conversation between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Joe Biden.
“In late December, the United States announced its donation of a Patriot air defense missile battery to Ukraine. Germany will join the United States in supplying an additional Patriot air defense battery to Ukraine,” said the statement.
It happened soon after France announced that it will soon talk to Ukraine about arranging the transfer of armored vehicles. According to the French presidency, the Ukrainian military will receive one of these wheeled tank destroyers for the first time.
The amount and timing of the supply of Marder APCs were not specified by the German government. The statement claimed that Germany will instruct Ukrainian forces on them.
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German military assistance to Ukraine already includes the first of four IRIS-T surface-to-air missile systems and Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft cannons.
Scholz has nevertheless been under pressure at home to provide more, such as Marder automobiles.
The head of the German parliament’s defense committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, said it was “a big relief that the government and particularly the chancellery are finally clearing the way” for the delivery of APCs to Ukraine.
“It comes very late but not too late,” said Strack-Zimmermann, a member of the Free Democrats — one of three parties in Scholz’s governing coalition — who has long pressed for the delivery of more types of weapons.
“We won’t let up,” she wrote on Twitter. “After the Marder comes the Leopard.”
